Don't use recruiters to find people for you. The experienced (and arguably "better") teachers who do their research won't use a recruiter. The reputations of recruiters are VERY shady with the teaching populace, and good teachers know this. My guess is that Hagwon owners are often taken advantage of by recruiters, as many teachers are.

Why risk your business hopes on a strange recruiter who provides you with someone you haven't spoken to yourself? Post your own ads on Dave's ESL. As a teacher, I am gaining more respect for the institutes who bother doing it for themselves. In all possible cases, I like (and expect) to have a good deal of interaction with the owner of the school. If I have a good rapport with the owner, then I know the year will go much more smoothly.

When searching for jobs, I totally tune out the recruiter ads! I know of others who do this too.

Why trust someone else with your future? The sad fact is that A LOT of money can be made quickly and easily by recruiters, and they often don't care about much else than the quick dollar. They might match you with the wrong person for your business.

Yes, there are certainly some decent recruiters out there, BUT they are few and far between. Don't take chances. Your school will look much more appealing to the "better" teachers if you DON'T use a recruiter.

I believe this fully 100%. My fiance was a recruiter and had to quit/be fired because she couldn't lie. And she had to lie to both the employer and employee. They were getting mad at her for this! Has anyone ever met a recruiter that was 100% behind his or her word on everything? I have to say I do have a problem when I meet someone who is a recuiter, it's hard for me to even socialize with them. They're the scum at the bottom of this dirty industry.

The experienced (and arguably "better") teachers who do their research won't use a recruiter.

Who ever said that Hagwon owners want experienced or better teachers? There may be some, but I think a lot of owners want someone pliable, and that they can easily shaft. Sadly, the majority of young kids just out of college fit this to a tee.

Who ever said that Hagwon owners want experienced or better teachers? There may be some, but I think a lot of owners want someone pliable, and that they can easily shaft. Sadly, the majority of young kids just out of college fit this to a tee.

And then these same fresh out of college kids pull a midnite run. Seems like a bit of a catch 22 to me. I'm with Derrek on this one. Personally I will answer ads from schools, but I'm more interested in networking or cold-calling.

I gotta go with Hank and kimcheeking on this one. A corollary to this post is that good schools don't use recruiters either. If you're in country and have a good network you can get it done yourself. Recruiters are only for newbies who don't want to do the heavy lifting on their own and/or don't have any $ to go to Korea to check it out.
To me, schools that use recruiters have something to hide. Why else would they pony up a month's salary to a recruiter? They use them because recruiters are good at putting lipstick on the pig. The school I was at constantly hired good teachers without a recruiter.
It would be interesting to know what % of runners went thru a recruiter vs no recruiter. I'm sure heavily weighted for teachers hired thru recruiters.

well i found my first job on my own and my second through a recruiter. My 2nd job is much better. If it weren't for a recruiter, I wouldn't have found the job I have now. Nevertheless, I'd say skip a recruiter. Out of the countless jobs proposed to me, only 2 of them were decent. I am the first native speaker to work for my hogwon, and my boss didn't know how to find a foreign teacher so he went through a recruiter. If I were not in Korea and met my future boss and co-workers, I wouldn't have taken the job either.

Overall, most recruiters just like to feed you BS. I love how some still try to make wonderland a good place to work. Yeah OK, whatever you say...